Marilyn's Photos - Aug 11 2026 - Yes - Big Brother is Watching You
The New York Times provides a free daily email of news headlines and short summaries. I recommend that you sign up. There are advantages and disadvantages of seeing the New York Times point of view. A major disadvantage is that we Canadians don't have the political election activity that is constant in the U.S. I admit that it has given me a negative view of what America spends its time and money on. On the plus side, the New York Times has many news-breaking stories that are important in our world. I found that to be the case yesterday.
Here's yesterday's summary and it is the topic of today's post. These are called Flock Cameras. They read license plates and supposedly assist law enforcement and municipal planning.
A few years ago in Ontario we remember the remote cameras that automatically read our speed and gave us speeding tickets. There was a public outcry over these, and they were all removed. But there are individual cases of police cameras being used - a case in Mississauga where the high-altitude pole camera pointed at a suspect's residence in a criminal case.
Was it a Flock Camera at our corner of Brookside and Baker a month or so ago? There are Reddit posts asking about seeing flock cameras in St. Catharines. The replies say that there weren't any records of government contracts so the implication might be that it isn't wide-spread. In Canada the tracking systems are operated directly by police services rather than a private company, so a Flock Camera would be unusual here.
Compare this to the U.S. where the New York Times reports that there are 7,000 police departments with Flock contracts and that 20 billion license plates a month are scanned. And the horror stories will likely increase: Police surrounding cars in mistaken identity stories, families held at gunpoint by police, romantic tracking and harassment by police officers, and widespread discipline of police offices for serious misuse. Then there are the immigration sweeps by ICE with immigration-related searches - over 15,000 of them.
So back to the top of the post. There are news items in the New York Times summary each day that we wouldn't consider applying to us. And then we find that they do.
And find a bright spot - go to the bottom of the post - Ken Kesey's psychedelic bus is making a comeback.
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